Agent found outside Johnston Atoll depot

This story was published Tue, Aug 20, 2002

By Karen Zacharias
Herald Oregon bureau

JOHNSTON ISLAND -- One of the military's most toxic forms of nerve agent, VX, was discovered in a container of hot sludge sitting outside on a cooling pad at the Johnston Atoll Chemical depot.

The Johnston Island facility is 750 miles southwest of Hawaii. Washington Demilitarization Co., the company contracted to destroy munitions on the island, also is the contractor for the Umatilla Chemical Depot.

Because of that, officials with Oregon's Department of Environmental Quality are keeping an eye on the situation.

"The metal parts furnace is a very good operating system," said Wayne Thomas, program administrator for the state regulatory agency for the Umatilla site. "Any time there's a potential for chemical agent release, we will be reviewing the incident with the Army to make sure the protective procedures are in place (at Umatilla) to protect workers, the community and the environment," Thomas said Monday.

A team of Army officials is on the island to investigate the Aug. 12 incident, and the Environmental Protection Agency also was informed. No more waste will be burned at the site until the investigation is completed.

Army officials said Monday that no workers have tested positive for exposure to the deadly chemical. The baby oil-like substance is not vaporous unless heated. But Oregon health officials have said it takes less than a pin-size drop of VX to kill a person. And mixed with flames, VX becomes both vaporous and volatile.

This is the second time VX has been discovered in waste products burned at Johnston Atoll, said Craig Williams, a spokesman for the Chemical Weapons Working Group, a national anti-incineration group. Previous incidences include traces of VX in a bin of ashes in October 2000. The EPA issued a violation against the Army for the release of a trace of VX in that incident.

"This shows the technology is not reliable means of destroying agent," Williams said.

Army officials confirmed Monday that preliminary investigation showed "portions of (the VX-contaminated wastes) were not completely burned."

But Army officials noted that all the island's primary stores of nerve agent -- about 2,000 tons of VX, mustard gas and sarin -- were successfully destroyed in November 2000. The 520 workers at Johnston Atoll are burning secondary waste items and dismantling the facility.

Mary Binder, a spokeswoman for the Umatilla depot, said the incident involving VX occurred after a 55-gallon drum of secondary wastes -- such as rags, a gas mask, bag liners and a bag of sludge containing hydraulic fluid and spent decontamination solution -- had been burned in the metal parts furnace at 1,600 degrees.

Alarms designed to detect any agent are in various areas of the furnace, including two air locks. Those air locks are at the beginning of the furnace and at the end of the furnace. If no alarms sound, the container of hot sludge is rolled via remote outside to a cooling pad area. Workers outside on the cooling pad were dressed in coveralls with gas masks slung on their hips, Binder said.

Two minutes after the tray rolled out of the furnace and onto the adjacent cooling pad, the first of two alarms sounded. Binder said before that there had been no sign of VX present.

Once the first alarm sounded, Binder said, operators in the control room backed it up mechanically to the furnace's discharge air lock, where a second alarm sounded. The process took about 20 minutes.

 

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